746: 001 746: 001 At the end of the year 2077, Yawgmoth stood amidst the exquisite modeling that filled the sky.
They were visualizations of amino acids and their modifying groups.
On the side of each bond and each group, there was a visualized Markov process, revealing to Yawgmoth the potential collapsing directions of this long chain.
According to principles such as the energy variation principle that are based on the second law of thermodynamics, this unstable polypeptide chain would eventually undergo spontaneous folding until it reached a stable state.
This “folding” process was magical.
Polypeptide chains and simple modifying groups could fold into a wide variety of proteins.
These proteins could even be viewed as molecular-sized chanical parts, with countless chanical parts shing together to perform imprecise yet complex chanical operations, upon which all life activities are established.
Complex eukaryotes even possess specialized organelles to assist in the folding of polypeptide chains.
And the sequence of these polypeptide chains, their folding thods, including the information on “structures that assist in the folding of polypeptides,” could all be transcribed into binary or quaternary information, recorded by DNA or RNA.
DNA naturally contained the “elents that validate its own existence.”
Decades ago, this process was almost invisible to humans.
Nature, with its “miniscule” thods, encapsulated the entire process, and stuffed an endless amount of redundant code, BUGs, into the source code.
Yawgmoth’s work from decades prior was equivalent to providing humans with the working principles of “life”—he was like an early 20th-century engineer who dismantled logic gates from an alien computer, then understood how they worked, and even theoretically deduced the computer’s operating process.
Before that, humans were rely utilizing a black box, testing the functions of specific genes one by one.
But after that, the scope of biology suddenly beca complete.
Humans were astonished to discover that they were not struggling on their own, but rather, opening up vistas on a complete map.
Now, the laws of life were further deciphered.
Humans suddenly understood how this chemistry-based language functioned.
The rapid advances in biology seed to be ignited overnight.
And when humans “customized” their own neurons to be more suited to electronic circuits, making the integration of the human brain and computers even tighter, human intelligence was greatly enhanced.
A new round of the “cognitive revolution” thus began.
Humans from before and after the “cognitive revolution” almost looked like two different species, with a gap so vast it was akin to the difference between “knowing how to use fire” and “not learning how to use fire.” A small number of extre conservatives who resisted these changes lived on reserves scattered across the globe, while humanity welcod a new era of rapid developnt.
Biology, in this process, received yet another boost.
To humans who underwent a cognitive leap, the “vast and incomprehensible data” in the eyes of the old humans suddenly had “simple patterns.” Hundreds, thousands of symbols, in their eyes, possessed the simplicity of musical notes.
Any complex data instantly had the beauty of a “symphony.”
In fact, these things had always been rhythmic; it’s just that the smallest units composing this “rhythm” also exceeded the intuitive mory capacity of the old humans, so they could not perceive this kind of beauty.
It was like a sumr insect incapable of discussing ice.
On this basis, so people started from the functional geno and worked top-down to reverse-engineer the entire process of life.
Others attempted a bottom-up approach, trying to reconstruct life’s blueprint.
And this huge success was now gathering before Yawgmoth.
Yawgmoth had a feeling that he was transcending the “physical layer” of life.
The “kernel layer” of life processes was being exposed before him.
— It’s close, it’s very close…
Yawgmoth felt a wave of dizziness.
He unplugged the data line behind his ear and rubbed his temples.
At that mont, he suddenly felt a sense of unreality.
— Is this year really…
2077…?
“`
So parts of his mory beca ambiguous in that instant.
Yawgmoth suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore.
How strange.
A mysterious sense of disharmony suddenly erged.
Looking back on the past ten years of history, Yawgmoth imdiately felt a sense of disarray.
To use earlier history as an analogy, these ten years were akin to…
ndel and Morgan co-publishing a paper on the first day, followed by Darwin announcing his theory of evolution on the sa day.
Herman and Fengte discussed the physiology of neurons a few days apart.
A week later, Watson and Crick discovered the double helix, and three days after that, they invented the central dogma.
The supplent to the central dogma was completed within five days.
Then, within the next week, humans invented optogenetics, which could directly interfere with certain physiological activities of the brain.
Such a whirlwind of rapid progress was just like…
When Yawgmoth ca to his senses, he was already sitting at the dining table.
Xiang Shan thodically tore off a rib from the pork ribs, the juices flowing across the one-ter long wooden dining plate.
Wearing heat-resistant gloves, he placed a rib with cartilage on the plate in front of Zhu Xinyu, and at the sa ti said to Yawgmoth, “This is the magic of wisdom, Yawgmoth.”
Zhu Xinyu’s eyelids drooped slightly, her face adorned with a smile, she picked up her chopsticks and slowly nibbled on the ribs.
That’s when Yawgmoth rembered.
It was supposed to be the ti for an internal dinner at Superman Enterprise.
What had he just said…
expressing to Xiang Shan his amazent over the fast progress in biology recently?
Xiang Shan continued to serve a rib to David.
David also bowed slightly.
Xiang Shan then said, “You opened a door, do you rember?
The alien spaceship brought the key.”
In the 1930s, an alien spaceship brought a portion of biological samples.
Even more astonishing, those biological samples were divided into eight different but interconnected systems.
On Earth, life occurred only once—all Earth life has a single common ancestor, the sa prival organism.
However, the civilization that created those extraterrestrial beings might possess eight different Origins.
It was as if a “Super Rosetta Stone” had fallen into human hands.
On the eight faces of the Stone, written in eight advanced languages completely incomprehensible to humans, were eight functional applications almost identical to each other.
—That doesn’t seem right…
Rather than guessing that a planet’s life forms have eight different Origins and use eight different enzy systems, it’s more plausible to assu that this was a research vessel that collected species samples from eight different planets…
—But then, if a civilization’s unmanned spaceship can collect species samples from eight different life-bearing planets, shouldn’t their technological level be far beyond humanity’s…
Why did everyone unanimously believe back then…
that the spaceship’s technology was more primitive than humanity’s at the ti…
…
Xiang Shan continued to serve a rib to David.
David accepted it with a chuckle and, without a care, grabbed it with his hands and chewed voraciously.
Zhu Xinyu and Ingrid were joking around.
Xiang Shan smiled, “The ‘vast potential’ is the bitter sea comprised of probabilities.
Yet the power of wisdom can help us pass through this dark ocean.
It is the compass, the Polaris.
Do you know BB(n)?”
“`
Reviews
All reviews (0)